Is There A New Britney Spears Song Floating Around The Internet Right Now?

noah | September 16, 2008 10:00 am

Like the Timex Social Club, I spend a lot of time lamenting the rumors that surround me every day. How do they get started? And where do they get crazy? In Truthmongerer, I’ll try to suss out the kernels of truth in the rumors that are taking up airspace in gossip columns, blogs, and our tips inbox.

THE RUMOR: A new song by Britney Spears–“Candy From Strangers,” which is a collaboration with the hip-hop wondertwins Laze & Royal–has leaked. This is the first taste of her forthcoming album, Circus. At least, that’s what the site britneyspearscircusleak, which claims that it’s going to release a new Spears song “everyday” [sic, sigh] until the album’s December release date, says.

TRUTH THRESHOLD: 72%.

LIKELY TRUTHS: The vocal sure sounds like Spears, although to be fair, there are about three pounds of effects troweled onto the track–enough that I could probably sound like her if I could be arsed to record the song myself. The music, too, sounds at least somewhat similar to the songs on Blackout, with some observers even pointing out that parts of this sound pretty much identical to that album’s “Break The Ice.” And back in August, Laze and Royal blogged about working with Spears, so the idea of them appearing on a track of hers isn’t that out-there.

britneyspearscircusleak.com is currently a single page with a frame linking to a page on Jacksonville, Fla.’s pop station KISS-FM, which is a Clear Channel outlet that’s not to be confused with all the other SWAK’d stations out there. (The leak isn’t teased anywhere on the station’s homepage, although that could just be the result of a lazy Web team.) For those of you who want to try Internet sleuthery, a Whois search on BSCL.com came up inconclusive:

Registrant: Domains by Proxy, Inc. DomainsByProxy.com 15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States

BURNING QUESTIONS: Wasn’t the first single from the album supposed to be “Womanizer,” and wasn’t it supposed to drop next week? Also, why on earth would Jive Records choose a Jacksonville, Fla., radio station as its preferred leakage channel? Are we that deep in the Internet age that New York’s Z100 and Los Angeles’ KIIS-FM don’t have to be the sources for big-name premieres? Could this just be a–gasp!–publicity stunt by Laze & Royal, or, like last year, another half-real, half-fake leak that’s just designed to whet the public’s appetite for new music from Spears, as opposed to new paparazzi shots?

Is This Britney Spears [Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul] britneyspearscircusleak.com [Official (?) site] Whois BritneySpearsCircusLeak.com [GoDaddy.com]